2. Conflict Theorists
• Karl Marx
• Harriet Martineau
• W.E.B.du Bois
• Jane Addams
• John Bellamy Foster
3. Conflict Theorist’s Worldview
• Conflict theory is a theoretical framework
that views society in a struggle for scarce
resources.
• Studies issues such as race, gender, social
class, criminal justice, and international
relations.
• Two main concerns for conflict theorists are
economic wealth and power.
4. • In either case, conflict theory suggests that
we’re all struggling for more “stuff”,
whether that “stuff” is power in a marriage
or wealth in the world.
5. • In general, the essence of conflict theory
suggests that a pyramid structure of power
an wealth exists in society.
• The elite at the top of the pyramid
determine the rules for those below.
6. • The study of inequality in sociology always
involves a consideration of conflict theory.
• Therefore, the paradigm applies to social
class, race, gender, marriage, religion,
population, environment, and a host of
other social phenomena.
7. • If you believe that discrimination, ageism,
sexism, racism, and classism occur in society
because some people have the power to
promote their desires over others’; then you
think like a conflict theorist.
8. Karl Marx
• Marx suggested that in a capitalist system,
the bourgeoisie or members of the capitalist
class, own most of the wealth because they
control the businesses.
• Marx called the workers in a capitalist
system the proletariat, the poor working
class of society.
9. • The proletariat do all the work and the
owners reap all the benefits.
• According to Marx, workers will never get
ahead if they do not share in the wealth they
create.
10.
11. Why don’t workers change their
fate?
• Marx suggests that it was because people
had a false consciousness, or a lack of
understanding of their position in society.
• Marx proposed that the workers must
develop class consciousness, or an
understanding of one’s position in the
system.
• He suggested most workers do not truly
understand how capitalism enslaves them.
12. • Marx believed that once workers recognized
their positions, they would unite to end the
tyranny and oppression.
• He proposed an overthrow of the private
ownership of business, and instead
suggested socialism.
• Marx felt that economic power should be in
the hands of the people because wealth
corrupts human nature.
Absolute Power Corrupts,
Absolutely!
13. Harriet Martineau
• Martineau, one of the first female
sociologists, did not just examine the
inequalities in the economic system, she also
focused on the inequality between the
sexes.
14. Society in America
• In the book, Society in America, Martineau
analyzed the impact of slavery, the position
of women in society, and the social customs
in the US political and economic systems.
• She points out how these systems favor men
who hold the power in society.
• She pointed out that some people did not
have the same opportunities as others.
15. W.E.B. du Bois
• Du Bois was particularly interested in issues
of racial inequality in the United States.
• His book, The Philadelphia Negro, du Bois
showed that poverty among African
Americans in the United States was primarily
the result of prejudice and discrimination.
16. • Implying that slavery and capitalism led to
African Americans’ problems, du Bois
pointed out that history was influential over
the present.
• He also noted that African Americans of his
time had to live in two worlds, a white one
and a black one.
17. • Du Bois was the first and perhaps most influential
sociologist to study race in the US.
• He was a social activist, and became more
interested in working to improve life on the African
continent and less interested in live in the United
States.
• Du Bois eventually came to believe that African
Americans would never be equal to whites.
18. (Laura) Jane Addams
• In Toynbee Hall, Addams witnessed the
settlement house movement.
• The settlement house movement supported
the idea that poverty results from ignorance
and structural barriers, not from failings in
the morality of the person.
• The settlement house workers actually lived
and worked in the slums.
19. Hull House Principles
• Addams and a friend set up to open their
own settlement house in Chicago in 1889
called Hull House with three principles:
1. Workers would live in the slums to better
understand the problems there.
2. Every person had dignity and worth regardless
of race/ethnicity, gender or social class.
3. Dedication, education, and service can
overcome ignorance, disease, and the
structures that perpetuate poverty.
20. John Bellamy Foster
• Foster’s work is primarily concerned with
the negative effects of capitalism on society
and the planet as a whole.
• In his article, “The End of Rational
Capitalism,” he points out that purely
capitalist economies, or economies in which
markets are totally free, are disappearing
throughout the world.
21. • Foster argues that markets cannot “solve
problems” because there are no profits to
be had from such an endeavor.
• The expansion of the US economy was
largely related to building up those countries
devastated after World War II.
22.
23. Criticism of Conflict Theory
• Critics of conflict theory often accuse it of
being too radical.
• This paradigm often becomes synonymous
with the idea that powerful people oppress
the weak.
• A simple reading of conflict theory can also
seem to make the notion of conflict seem
like a bad thing.
• Doesn’t competition breed excellence?
26. Symbolic Interactionism
• Symbolic Interactionism focuses on how
communication influences the way people’s
interactions with each other create the
social world in which we live.
• Symbolic Interactionists believe that the
root of society comes from its symbols.
• They suggest that the symbols we use are
arbitrary, meaning that they vary from
culture to culture.
27. • Our definition of what has value depends on
our understanding of it.
• Context and setting affects our
understanding of a social event.
• Social order results when the members of
society share common definitions of what is
appropriate.
28. • Disputes arise when we do not share the
same definitions.
• Symbolic interactionism is the most micro of
sociological approaches, as it often studies
the activities of individuals and then draws
connections to larger society from these.
• Studies of relationships, race, deviance, and
even social movements can all use a
symbolic interactionist approach.
29. • Interactionists argue that individuals have
the power to co-create the world, to make it
what they want it to be.
• People develop standards and norms
through a process of interacting with others.
• Symbolic Interactionism is a distinctly
American way of looking at the world.
30. George Herbert Mead
• Symbolic Interactionism is the brainchild of
George Herbert Mead.
• In Mind, Self and Society, Mead suggests that
the root of society is the symbols that teach
us to understand the world.
• We then use these symbols to develop a
sense of self, or identity.
31. • It is this identity that we then take into the
world and interact with other identities to
create society.
• Thus, building blocks of society start with
our minds, where we interpret symbols.
32. • Mead suggests that we do this through
micro interactions we have every day.
• Mead argues that all these various symbols
enter our minds, where their meaning is
interpreted and we are told how to react.
• Mead suggests that this process is never-
ending, therefore, we have a fluid sense of
who we are.
33. • Our selves can change, and they do change
based on how we interpret the symbols
thrown our way.
• In this way, your self develops.
• Self is your identity, it’s what makes you
who you are and separates you from others.
34. Self Evaluation
• According to Mead, you couldn’t have a self
without symbols or without someone to
pass those symbols to you.
• In other words, you learn who you are
through others.
35. • Mead proposed that symbols build society.
• Symbols have meanings and meaning directs
our lives.
• The symbols a society uses help us
understand the people in that society.
• Symbols help us define a situation and
determine what we should do about it.
36. Herbert Blumer
• Established three basic premises that define the
symbolic interactionist perspective:
1. Human beings behave toward things on the
basis of the meanings they ascribe to those
things.
2. The meaning of such things is derived from, or
arises out of the social interaction that one has
with others and society.
3. These meanings are handled in and modified
through an interpretive process used by the
person in dealing with the things he or she
encounters.
37. Erving Goffman
• Goffman developed a theory called
dramaturgy, a theory of interaction in which
all life is like acting.
• Goffman uses this theory to compare daily
social interactions to the gestures of actors
on a stage.
38. • People are constantly “acting” in order to
convince people of the character they wish
to portray to the outside world.
• Not to say that people are faking it, but
rather that people are concerned about
what the rest of the world will think of them
and they adjust their social interactions
accordingly.
39. Howard Becker
• Becker suggests that human action is related
to the labels attached to it.
• In his book, Outsiders: Studies in the
Sociology of Deviance, Becker suggests that a
label is attached to a certain behavior when
a group with powerful social status labels it
deviant.
40. • He suggests that deviance is rooted in the
reactions and responses of others to an
individuals acts.
• Becker would suggest that the label we
ascribe to people has a major influence on
their behavior.
42. Criticisms of Symbolic
Interactionism
• Critics of symbolic interactionism suggest
that his perspective ignores the coercive
effects of social structure, focusing too
much on the power of the individual to co-
create his or her world.
43. How are the three paradigms
interrelated?
• No single paradigm fits every situation.
• To get a complete picture, many sociologists
use all three paradigms.
• In this way, the three paradigms are
interrelated and work together to help us
figure out why society is the way it is.
44.
45. Max Weber- The Conflict Theorist?
• Max Weber is a special sociologist because
he cannot be labeled under just one theory.
• Because he wrote partly as a response to
some of Karl Marx’s ideas, many consider
him to be a conflict theorist.
• Weber accepted that social classes influence
our outcomes, however he felt Marx’s social
class system was too simple.
46. • Weber proposed that all people have
economic, political and cultural conflicts
that are related to their relative social
position.
47. Max Weber-The Functionalist?
• In other ways, Weber appeared to take a
more functional approach.
• Weber proposed that rational and ideal
bureaucracies naturally occur because we
need them.
• They provide clear lines of authority, divide
tasks so workers can specialize, and clearly
define rules and expectations.
48. Max Weber-The Symbolic
Interactionist?
• Weber’s ideas seem to lay the foundation for
the symbolic interactionist school of
thought.
• He pointed out how values influence our
goals and affect our behavior.
• In his book, The Protestant Ethic and the
Spirit of Capitalism, Weber clearly linked a
person’s religious value to the societal
creation of a capitalist economy.
49. • Weber also discussed how values are
important to the study of sociology.
• Weber stressed that sociology should be
value-free.
• In other words, sociologists should study
society as it is, not as they would like it to be.
50. • They should put their biases aside when
analyzing a topic.
• He implied that personal values may impact
social research, and therefore sociologists
must strive to put such values aside when
they make their analysis.
